1871 Kekionga, Ft. Wayne (Kekiongas)

This rendering is based on partial visual documentation for uniform style and non-contemporary written documentation for color. Important details may be undocumented or difficult to determine. An educated guess is made to complete the rendering.

Rendering accuracy:Year: documented    Team: documented

Visual documentation on this uniform:

Photo A

Dated 1871, portraits possibly from June 1871. Montage of player portraits, full view at left, detail view at right. Year of issue confirmed by the fact that the majority of players only played for this team in 1871. The team disbanded September 5, 1871. A June 1871 date could be suggested for the portraits as a newspaper described that “photographs of the members of the Kekionga Base Ball Club” had been made. Players were shown in the montage above as wearing a white uniform with a large bib on the shirt. The bib had white buttons and was trimmed in a dark color. It featured a large old-English letter “K” in the center.

Top row, from left: E Mincher (71), W Kelley (70?, 71) and P Donnelly (71). Middle: F Sellman (71), B Mathews (71) and J Foran (71). Front: W Goldsmith (70,71), B Lennon (71) and T Carey (71). Years players with team from Paul Batesel, Players And Teams Of The National Association, 1871-1875 (2012). Disbanding date from Bill Griggs and Jim Nitz, SABR BioProject: Kekionga Ball Grounds, retrieved August 15, 2020.

Written documentation on this uniform:
April 1871: “Below we give a complete list, arranged alphabetically, of the regular professional nines which have completed their organization for the season: Atlantic of Brooklyn, share gate money; Athletic of Philadelphia, pay players by salary; Boston of Boston, stock company; Chicago of Chicago, stock company; Eckford of Brooklyn, share gate money; Forest City of Cleveland, pay players by salary; Forest City of Rockford, share gate money; Haymakers of Troy, stock company; Kekiongas of Fort Wayne, share gate money; Mutuals of New York, pay players by salary; National of Washington, share gate money; Olympic of Washington, stock company.” From the Buffalo Express, April 29, 1871, page 4. Research from Ed Morton.

May 4, 1871, Kekionga, Ft. Wayne, v. Forest City, Cleveland, at Ft. Wayne, Hamilton Field, home opener: “The Cleveland team entered the enclosure, and the Kekionga, wearing their white uniforms with red stockings, escorted the Forest City, wearing white uniforms with blue stockings, to the clubhouse.” From James E. Egan, Jr., Base Ball on the Western Reserve, The Early Game in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, Year by Year and Town by Town, 1865-1900 (2008). No citations were given with this information. The entry also described that the Kekionga pennant from this time period as having a “field of red bunting”, “a border of blue trim” and the team name in “white letters.”

May 13, 1871, Kekionga, Ft. Wayne, v. Chicago, at Ft. Wayne: “[Kekinonga second baseman Tom] Carey himself underwent the forcing process at the hands of Duffy and Wood, Mincher being the cause. No runs: 10 to 2, with the Red Stockings behind.” From the Chicago Tribune, May 14, 1871, page 3. Kekinonga lost 14 to 5.

May 26, 1871, Kekionga, Ft. Wayne v. Forest City, Cleveland, at Cleveland: “Friday [May 26] the Kekiongas of Fort Wayne visited our place [Cleveland] and played their second match with the Forest Club of Cleveland. The Keks are glad they came. […] Their uniform consists of white shirts and pants, red stockings and blue and white checked caps.” From the Ft. Wayne Daily Gazette, May 29, 1871, page 4, citing the Cleveland Herald.

June 1871: “Mr. Chas. E. Wallen presented us today the photographs of the members of the Kekionga Base Ball Club. The pictures are of Berlin finish, the first we have seen, their execution and perfection cannot be excelled, even in New York.” From the Ft. Wayne Sentinel, June 30, 1871. Research from Ed Morton.

Team genealogy: Kekionga, Ft. Wayne 1866-1871
Kekionga was formed in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in 1866 and joined the National Association (NA) in 1871. The NA was baseball’s first league, operating 1871-1875. The team name, Native American for blackberry bush, came from the name of the primary settlement of the Miami people, and where Ft. Wayne was subsequently built nearby in the 1820s. The Kekionga baseball club disbanded during the 1871 NA season. Information from Paul Batesel, Players and Teams of the National Association, 1871-1875 (2012), and from wikipedia.com.